The Complete Essays (53 page)

          ad hæc se
Romanus, Graiusque, et Barbants Induperator
Erexit, causas discriminis atque laboris
Inde habuit, tanto major famæ sitis est quam
Virtutis
.

[For this were Roman, Greek and Barbarian chiefs aroused; this was the motive of their risks and labours, so much more did they thirst for fame than virtue.]
¹⁴

47. On the uncertainty of our judgement

[Renaissance education in both rhetoric and dialectic gave a large place to arguments
pro et contra.
Montaigne’s own arguments suggest that this is no mere schoolboy practice but of vital interest in war. As well as Classical
exempla
of diametrically opposed decisions leading to similar results, Montaigne gives towards the end, in a long, rambling, rambling sentence, reflections attributed to King Francis I in the
Mémoires
of the brothers Du Bellay.]

[A] As this verse rightly says,

‘there is every possibility of speaking for and against anything’.
¹
For example:

Vinse Hannibal, et non seppe usar’ poi
Ben la vittoriosa sua Ventura
.

[Hannibal won battles, but he never knew how to profit from his victories.]
²

If anyone wants to defend that position and to persuade our side that it was wrong not to have followed up our recent victory at Montcontour, or if he should want to criticize the King of Spain for not knowing how to exploit the advantage he won over us at Saint-Quentin, he may say as follows: that these mistakes proceeded from a soul high drunk with good fortune and from a mind which, having gorged itself full on such a happy beginning, had lost all appetite for more, finding it hard to digest what it already had; the fellow has his arms full: he cannot take anything else; he is not worthy that Fortune should have placed such a favour in his hands: what has he gained if he then goes and provides his enemy with the means of recovery? What hope can a man have of daring to attack his enemies later, after they have rallied and re-mustered and are newly armed with vengeance and anger, when he did not dare to hunt them down when terrified and routed?

Dum fortuna calet, dum conficit omnia terror
.

[When Fortune is aroused and Terror in control.]
³

And after all, what better opportunity can he expect than the one he has just lost? War is not like a fencing-match where you can win on points: so long as your enemy is on his feet you must begin to attack him again harder; while the war is not ended there is no victory. In that skirmish in which Caesar was worsted near the town of Oricum he shamed Pompey’s soldiers by saying that he would have lost everything if their general had only known how to win; and he made Pompey clap on his spurs to quite other effect when his own turn came!

But why do they not also state the opposite, as follows: that it is the action of a headlong and insatiable mind not to know when to set a limit to what it covets; that it is to abuse God’s favours to wish to strip them of that moderation which he has prescribed for them; that to plunge into danger after a victory is to put it again at the mercy of Fortune; that one of the wisest rules of the art of war is never to drive your foes to despair. In the war between the allies, when Sylla and Marius had defeated the Marsi and spotted a group of survivors about to make a desperate attack like beasts driven mad, they did not think it wise to await them. If Monsieur de Foix had not been led by his ardour to pursue the remnant so relentlessly after the victory of Ravenna he would not have sullied it by his death. (Nevertheless the memory of his example was still fresh enough to preserve Monsieur d’Enghien from a similar mistake at Cérisoles.) It is hazardous to go and attack a man when you have deprived him of all means of escape save his weapons, for Necessity is a ferocious teacher: [C]
‘Gravissimi sunt morsus irritatæ necessitatis.’
[When Necessity is aroused her bites are most grievous.]

[B]
Vincitur haud gratis jugulo qui provocat hostem
.

[It will not cost you nothing to defeat a man if you are threatening to slit his throat.]
⁴

[C] That is why Pharax prevented the King of Sparta, who had just won the day against the men of Mantinea, from confronting several hundred Argives who had escaped unscathed from their defeat, persuading him to let them flee without hindrance so as not to have to assay what virtue is like when goaded and outraged by misfortune.

[A] After his victory King Clodomire of Aquitania was pursuing the fleeing King Gondemar of Burgundy whom he had defeated, when he forced him to turn about and face him: his stubborn determination robbed him of the fruits of his victory, for he was slain.

Similarly, supposing you had to choose between keeping your soldiers armed richly and sumptuously or armed only with the bare necessities. In favour of the first side – that of Sertorius, Philopoemen, Brutus, Caesar and others – the following argument can be found: it is always a spur to honour and glory for a soldier to be splendidly armed as well as an encouragement to him to fight more stubbornly, seeing that he has to safeguard his weapons which constitute his inherited wealth. [C] That, says Xenophon, was the reason why the Asians used to bring their wives, their concubines and their richest jewels and treasures with them when they fought.
⁵

[A] But in favour of the other side there is found the following: rather than encouraging it, we should remove from the soldier any thought of preserving his life; such a practice would redouble his fears of exposing himself to risks; with such rich spoils you increase the enemy’s lust for victory; it was noticed on other occasions that it was wonderful how hopes of spoil put heart into the Romans in their encounters with the Samnites. [B] When Antiochus was showing off to Hannibal the army which he was making ready to fight the Romans, with all its splendid and magnificent equipment of every kind, he asked: ‘Will this army be enough for the Romans?’ – ‘Will it be enough for them! I should say it would,’ he replied, ‘no matter how greedy they may be!’ [A] Lycurgus not only forbade his own men to have luxurious equipment but even to despoil their vanquished enemies: he wished, he said, that it was their poverty and frugality that should outshine all else on the battlefield.
⁶

During sieges and the like when circumstances bring us close to our enemies we readily allow our soldiers full freedom to defy them and to taunt and insult them with all manner of abuse: and that can seem to be reasonable, for it is no little achievement to deprive our own men of any hope of mercy or of reconciliation by showing them that they no longer have any cause to expect such things from enemies they have so strongly provoked; there is only one remedy: victory.

But in the case of Vitellius that all went awry. He was confronting Otho, who was weaker than he was because his soldiers were no longer used to actual fighting, being debilitated by the pleasures of Rome; but he maddened them so with his stabbing insults, mocking them for their weakness and their regrets at leaving the feastings and women of Rome, that – something which no exhortations had managed to do – he put new heart into them so that while no one could drive them to engage him he led them to do so. And in truth when such insults touch a man to the quick they can soon make someone who was going slackly about his duty on behalf of his king start doing it with a far different emotion on behalf of himself.
⁷

Considering how vital it is to safeguard an army’s leader whose head his enemies have constantly in their sights since all his men cling to him and depend on him, it would seem impossible to cast doubt on the decision which we have seen taken by many great military leaders to disguise their apparel at the moment of battle; yet the disadvantages of this practice are no less than those we think we avoid: for when their general cannot be recognized by his own men the courage they derive from his example and his presence begins at once to fail them; they miss the sight of his usual symbols and insignia and think he is killed or has despaired of victory and fled.

As for experience, it can be seen to favour now one party in the dispute now the other. What happened to Pyrrhus in the battle waged against the consul Levinus in Italy can be cited by us on either side: by deciding to disguise himself under the armour of Demogacles and to give him his he undoubtedly saved his life; but he all but fell into the other disadvantage: that of losing the day.
⁸
[C] Alexander, Caesar and Lucullus liked to stand out on the battlefield in their rich equipment and armour, with their own particular colour gleaming: Agis, Agesilaus and the mighty Gylippus on the other hand went to war in dark colours, not dressed like the man in command.

[A] Among other things which were held against Pompey at the battle of Pharsalia was his bringing his army to a firm halt and awaiting the enemy. ‘That is because’ (and here I will steal the very words of Plutarch, which are worth more than my own) ‘such tactics reduce the ferocious power which the act of charging gives to the opening blows and also removes that shock of combatant against combatant which, more than
anything else, regularly fills soldiers with a furious madness as they stoutly dash at each other, their shouts as they run giving them more heart; the other tactics can be said to dampen their ardour and to chill it.’ That is what Plutarch says on the subject.
⁹

But supposing Caesar had lost; could not anyone just as easily have asserted the contrary: that the most effective and most firm posture is to stand stock still; that whoever comes to a halt, sparing his energy for when needed and storing it up in himself, has a great advantage over the man in motion who has already used up half his breath in the charge. An army, moreover, being made up of many different individuals, it is not possible for it to manoeuvre so accurately during the frenzy of battle that its ranks be not weakened or broken, the more agile soldier already at grips with the enemy before his comrade can come to his support.

[C] In that ignoble battle between two Persian brothers,
¹⁰
Clearchus of Sparta who commanded the Greeks on the side of Cyrus led them to make a controlled and unhurried advance; then, when fifty yards away, he ordered his men to advance at the run, hoping that such a short distance would spare their breath and maintain their ranks while giving them the advantage of impulse both for their bodies and their javelins.

[A] In their own armies others have resolved that dilemma this way: if the enemy charges, stand firm; if he stands firm, charge.

During the invasion of Provence by the Emperor Charles V King Francis was able to choose between going to confront him in Italy or waiting for him in his own territory.
¹¹
And although he took into consideration what an advantage it is to keep the homeland clean, unsullied by the tumult of war, so that with its resources intact it can go on furnishing treasure and succour when needed; although he considered that the exigencies of war constantly oblige armies to lay waste, something which cannot be easily done in one’s own lands, the peasants moreover not putting up with such devastation so patiently when done by their own side rather than the enemy, so that it is easy to kindle seditious disturbances among us; that permission to rob and to pillage cannot be allowed in one’s own country, yet is a great compensation for the hardship of fighting; that it is difficult to keep a man to his duty when he has nothing to hope for but his pay and is only a few yards away from wife and hearth; that he
who orders the dinner pays the bill; that there is more joy in attack than in defence; that the shock of losing a battle within the guts of our land is so violent that it is hard to stop it shaking the whole body, seeing that there is no passion so contagious as fear nor caught so easily by hearsay nor spread so quickly; and that, when towns have heard the crashing of such storms at their very gates and let in their own officers and soldiers still quivering and breathless, there is a risk of that the townsfolk may in the heat of the moment leap to some evil decision: nevertheless King Francis chose to recall his transalpine forces and to watch the enemy approach.